Rush Limbaugh is the Socrates of hate. Scholars of the future will look at him not as a political phenomenon, but as a master of rhetoric who can instantly turn a reasonable critique of HN1N1 hysteria into a horrible thing.

Here is how he did it:

I don't doubt that the number of H1N1 cases out there is being hyped. And for many of the same reasons that AIDS was—and still is—hyped in Africa. Everything in Africa's called AIDS. The reason is they get aid money for it. AIDS is the biggest pile of-the biggest pot they throw money into.

In the professional hate-mongering world, we call this the double-reverse-holy-shit-is-that-a-lot-of-ignorant-hate. And you could not find a better example than is on display here. The key is to start squarely in the realm of reason. After a few seconds of saying reasonable things, jump instantly and without warning onto your hate platform. (In this clip, the leap happens at about 2:10.) Traipse about for a bit. Now it's all about getting enough hate out of your face before the language part of your listener's brain can process what's happening. Say the hate...keep saying the hate...say a little more hate... then BANG: Dismount! Back to reality (in a way)!

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The idea is that a potential listener, being a reasonable person, might say to themselves, "Well, yeah—this guy kind of does have a point. Swine flu is being blown way out of proportion with respect to the actual potency of the virus, and, yes, it is a scientific fact that antibiotics work only on bacteria and... wait...did he just say something terrible and hate-filled about AIDS being exaggerated in Africa? Oh well, I will just continue to agree with him. AIDS in Africa is made up!"

Hey, if you're going to hate-monger you might as well hate-monger with the best.